Assistant Professor of Anthropology Naomi Reed (panel organizer) and Professor of Anthropology Melissa Johnson (panel chair), along with two SCOPE undergraduate students, Rose Reed ’25 and Kalista Esquivel ’26, presented their panel “Unsilencing the Past: How Oral Histories Give Voice to Black and Latinx Students at Southwestern University” on April 18 at the Southwestern Social Science Association Conference in New Orleans, LA. Dr. Johnson discussed the foundational history of the University and the founding of The SU Racial History Project. Dr. Reed discussed the liberatory potential of oral histories and why this particular method is key to unsilencing the voices of the oppressed at a predominantly white institution. Rose presented the oral history of Lynette Philips, a Black woman who attended Southwestern University between 1980-1984, played basketball for the university, and was very active on campus. Kalista presented the oral history of Eva Mendiola, a Mexican-American woman who attended Southwestern University from 1972-1975 and founded the volleyball team, which was the first women’s sports team on campus. Future plans include submitting these student papers to a special issue of an oral history journal. The conference program can be viewed here.

Assistant Professor of Anthropology Naomi Reed and investigative journalist Brittney Martin received a 2024 Gracie Award for Best Investigative Feature [Radio ‐ Nationally Syndicated Non‐Commercial] for their podcast series “Sugar Land.” The Gracie Awards celebrate women in media. More info can be found here.

Assistant Professor of Anthropology Naomi Reed was invited to present at the Yale Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration Historical Studies of Texas Symposium on February 9th and 10th in Austin, Texas. On the roundtable “Community-Based Scholarship,” she explored who gets to be “community” when decisions are being made about forgotten Black cemeteries such as The Bullhead Camp Cemetery (the current resting place of the Sugar Land 95). She discussed how the Texas Antiquities Code requires community input when remains are discovered and how the broader Black descendant community of the 95 has been ignored, thus resulting in subpar memorialization efforts by the local school district that owns the land the bodies are buried on.

Assistant Professor of Anthropology Naomi Reed presented her poster presentation, “From Convicts to Ancestors: Resurrecting the Humanity of the Sugar Land 95,” at The American Anthropological Association Conference in Toronto, CA on November 16, 2023, where she explored the impact of white redemptive narratives–in media, archaeology reports, history curriculum, and cemetery signage–of Black history on the memorialization efforts of the Sugar Land 95 in Fort Bend County, TX.

Assistant Professor of Anthropology Naomi Reed was invited to discuss her podcast “Sugar Land” on the panel “Can you hear us now? Storytelling in podcasting” at the 2023 Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference hosted by The University of North Texas in Dallas, Texas, this past weekend October 13-14th. (https://www.themayborn.com/schedule). Dr. Reed and her co-host, investigative journalist Brittney Martin discussed their process of writing and editing “Sugar Land” and the benefit of interdisciplinary collaboration in storytelling and producing public scholarship.